Paper Example on Social Work and Social Welfare

Social work practice is basically the application of professional work when it comes to techniques, principles, and social work values. It is the active assistance of everyone in the society, regardless of their circumstance to get better and tangible services through numerous ways such as psychotherapy for the mentally unstable, protection for minors, financial assistance for the needy, and special care for the elderly plus disabled. Its major aim is driven towards targeting the improvement of both individual and societal behavior and development.

Policy 1: Child Welfare

The major values that apply to child care and protection include valuing the young person, respecting their personal relationships with their guardians, offer protection while preventing all harms, and use data respectively while maintaining the childs privacy. The child welfare policy is among the most discussed and relevant in our times. This is partly because we live in a generation where there is so much negligence of young children due to many factors that range from drug related issues to pure disregard (Berg-Weger, 2013). One of the values that particularly hit home for me based on my personal values is the protection of the child despite. This is among the principles that I have high regard for. I believe that children are innocent beings who should be allowed to exercise their childhood in environments that pose no harm for them even if it jeopardizes the relationship they have with their guardians. Sometimes, even if it is unwillingly, parents place children in situations where they should not be like a drug filled environment.

NASW has several procedures and protocols when it comes to child policy. Their main principle is that establishing connections that are permanent between a child and the guardians are critical when it comes to the general childs wellbeing (Cox, et al., 2016). NASW acknowledges that some parents are incapable of doing alone and there is need to guide them through their journey by use of social workers (Berg-Weger, 2013). In areas where the biological parents of the child or guardian are unavailable, the organization tries to place the children in foster homes where they can live out their childhood. Some cases result into several cases of changing of foster homes but more studies are being conducted into creating more sustainable plans in the future.

One of the values that conflict with mine is maintaining the privacy of the child. This means not disclosing information that the child tells the social worker if the child intends on keeping it private (National Association of Social Workers, 2008). I am a strong believer that sometimes a child can choose to protect a guardian even if they are harming them. Their empathy can get in the way of doing the right thing. The best way to cope with such a problem would be to know to what extent is the confidentiality absolutely necessary and placing the needs of the child before my own. I would advise a fellow worker with a moral dilemma such as mine to always place the needs of the client before his or her own.

Policy 2: Affordable Care Act Integration

A lot of people leave below the poverty line. This therefore goes to reflect that not many people can really access the worthy care when it comes to different aspects if their lives such as meeting basic needs like acquiring food and healthcare. The key value in this policy is that every human being is entitled to decency and care that elevates their self-worth and enables them to survive. This is regardless of whether they can afford it or not. The values of the policy coincide very much with my own. I believe in social equity and still hold the belief that there should be more redistribution of wealth to reduce the gap between the wealthy and the poor. All people should be able to access medical care even if they cannot afford the medical bills. I strongly believe that each government should invest most of the peoples money into this particular course ensuring that the public hospitals are heavily equipped and subsidized to meet the needs of all the people (Berg-Weger, 2013).

NASW has implemented several acts that aim to improve the social work system in this policy. One of the acts is ACA of 2010 that stands for Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (National Association of Social Workers, 2008). It came up with several solutions that were supposed to drive the policy towards a better direction. One of the solutions is to heavily promote the inclusion of social workers in health care teams so that there would be follow ups and more accountability. The social workers would also help those in need and cannot pay their bills but are admitted in hospitals. Another solution was equip social workers with the necessary skills to be mental health care providers and manage the department as administrators to ensure effectiveness (Cox et al., 2016). There was also a notion to work closely with Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation in order to improve implemented programs and also analyze the workforce patterns. All these new rules and regulations were geared into providing better healthcare including mental for everyone.

References

Berg-Weger, M. (2013). Social work and social welfare. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.

Cox, et al (2016). Introduction to social work: an advocacy-Based profession. SAGE Publications, Inc. National Association of Social Workers. (2008). NASW Code of Ethics. Retrieved from

https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics